Not a Peep from the CTX on a Small Earring

[gordonquixote]

I was hunting a park yesterday and a guy walked over and asked me to help look for an earring in the grass pathway from his wife's car to their front walkway (their house faced the park). His wife brought out the other one and it was a HUGE diamond in a similar setting to the picture below.

In low trash, sens +3, open screen....not even a peep from the CTX no matter how I crossed the earring with the coil literally touching it.

Kinda bummed me out because I would guess the earring was $1K-$2K and I sure would like to find one at the beach! What gives?

 

[GKMan]

Wow.. I wonder what pinpoint may have told you? it's a good thing I am not out there detecting for small earrings.

 

[jtalley007]

I was using 50 tones and foil gives a slight really low grunt. In relic mode I am also picking up small broken pcs. of precussion caps which are thin and smaller than a paper match head.

Now don't get me wrong, those broken ones that are tiny just barely give a response but they do.

It may just be that super tiny stuff like an earing post won't sound off but the benefits of depth of detection on normal stuff, sniffing stuff out of iron, etc. more than outweigh what it might miss.

Some detectors that are really sensitive on tiny things can also drive you nuts picking up small bird shot, etc. I feel anything other than the tiniest of things we won't miss IMHO.

Jerry

 

[DaytonaGold]

I found an earring at 6-8" deep on the beach, I wonder what's up with your ctx.

 

[Rob in (Ca)]

One of my beaches had 1000's of eraser size aluminum can slaw, the ctx had no problem picking them up. Now on small toe rings and gold charms not a peep from the ctx ?

 

[gordonquixote]

The earring gold didn't have any 'meat' to it. It was a big fat solitaire and the entire setting was the same as the post....just thin, round, and tiny. There was no flat band like in the picture I posted.

 

[goodmore]

Maybe the 6 inch coil would see it better. Maybe not. I know that the BBS machines (Sovereign and Excal) have a hard time with small gold. I have never tried it with my CTX. It is the trade off for being stable under certain ground conditions like wet sand. Depending on the size and purity I can see the CTX having a hard time as you witnessed. To add injury to insult many single frequency detectors that cost a fraction of the price probably would hit it hard. You are asking the CTX to do something it is just was not designed to do. Find micro gold. And as someone already stated finding micro gold would allow the CTX to hit on other micro targets and drive us nuts in the junk. No detector does all things well. There is always a trade off on something like stability.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Did you try TRASH HIGH and what were you set at Ferrous Coin, Ground Coin or the more normal I can't remember it at this time setting as I'm not home to look at mine. Did you try NO discrimination full open screen and maybe like Relic screen with some discrimination and is that manual ground ballance checked off so it operates in tracking mode? Just some ideas to try as I would think it would hit it. Try Two Tone Ferrous Mode?
I found something similar to that post earing using TTF with my Etrac last year.

 

[kiwi-jim]

Interesting,not sure if you read my post on the Etrac forum,I had the same problem here with a lost ear ring,it was a small horse shoe shape with diamonds,Three of us tried to get a signal with three different detectors (Etrac ,3030, and Exterra 705). We put the remaining ear ring on the ground well away from any interferance I thought for sure the 705 in gold mode with no disc would pick it up but not even a squeak, on any of them.I suspect that the coating of Rhodiam on them may have some bearing on the problem........hhhhmmmmm.I sometimes wonder what were missing.

 

[Jason in TN]

There are detectors designed to find stuff like that the CTX is not. Nothing unusual for FBS or bbs detectors. Want to find small stuff like that going to need a gold machine as a back up.

Jason

 

[Andrew Kalinowski]

....snp....You are asking the CTX to do something it is just was not designed to do. Find micro gold. And as someone already stated finding micro gold would allow the CTX to hit on other micro targets and drive us nuts in the junk. No detector does all things well. There is always a trade off on something like stability.

It would be nice if Minelab would tweak firmware to add "micro gold" as an option that one could turn ON and OFF at will. Kind of like "salt water" option which they added with the firmware update.
OTOH, I don't count on it. Even IF it would be possible, they would make CTX compete with their own, more expensive, gold machines.

 

[Nes (south Coast-CA)]

True... I tried reading a small gold chain using an Excalibur, Sovereign. Fisher CZ6 and other machines that I owned and nary a peep. They were having a detector meet near my house one Sunday and I took the gold chain along and tested it with every dealer machine there. The only one that hit on it was a Tesoro Lobo, loud and clear. That was years ago, and I still have that machine in the garage in case anyone loses small gold.... Nes

 

[Shayne]

[size=medium]I have a baby food jar half full of small earrings - gold, gold plated, silver and junk metal - that I have pulled from one beach over the last two years. When all of the easy targets are cleaned out - coins, rings, etc - using the stock 11" coil, I reduce my swing speed, open up the discrimination and dig anything with a good CONDUCTIVE number - including XX-01. Most of the earrings come in between XX-01 and XX-15. Depth is usually limited to 3 inches max and that is nearly brushing the sand with each sweep. I disregard the FERROUS number because they often register all over the place - from 06-XX to 27-XX. Below is a screen capture of my discrimination pattern and search mode settings. [/size]

 

[Shayne]

Here is a screen capture of my Universal Settings:

 

[sonnydigs]

[size=medium]I have a baby food jar half full of small earrings - gold, gold plated, silver and junk metal - that I have pulled from one beach over the last two years. When all of the easy targets are cleaned out - coins, rings, etc - using the stock 11" coil, I reduce my swing speed, open up the discrimination and dig anything with a good CONDUCTIVE number - including XX-01. Most of the earrings come in between XX-01 and XX-15. Depth is usually limited to 3 inches max and that is nearly brushing the sand with each sweep. I disregard the FERROUS number because they often register all over the place - from 06-XX to 27-XX. Below is a screen capture of my discrimination pattern and search mode settings. [/size]

Thanks for the post of your settings..
They look good..
Sonny

 

["Dr.Tones"]

6" coil will hit that all day.

 

[aurumpro]

n/t

 

[aurumpro]

You should pick it up with the 6in coil I regularly find gold nuggets as small as 0.2g at 100mm with the 6in coil in mineralized soil but the 11in won't signal even in air at max sensitivity.

 

[sonnydigs]

It should definitely pick it up..
I have found many small earrings at 5-7", no problem...
HH
Sonny